Dogbane Leaf Beetle

Description:

These beetles are always a fun thing to find. I love their coloration, which actually changes depending on how you look at it. The beetles themselves are extremely docile and you can pick them up and get a close look quite easily. The metallic-y exoskeleton is what I really enjoy looking at, but what also makes it very hard to photograph, so I'll leave my camera settings in the notes. As the name suggest, you will only find these guys on dogbane. They eat it, and in fact the leaves in the photos have bite marks from other dogbane leaf beetles on them.

Habitat:

Restored prairie habitat. Specifically on Apocynum sp. (dogbane.) They can also be found on milkweeds, though I have never seen it happen.

Notes:

ISO-1000 1/250 sec f/16 (I'm not sure on this since my macro lens is manual aperture and I wasn't attention to the numbers too closely, but I know it was quite high and close to 16) No flash was used, and I have yet to have success photographing shiny beetles with a flash. Let me know you're settings for shooting beetles like this, I'd love to know.